Lt. Sidney Allen with the Little Rock Police Department reports the scant details available right now on two suspicious deaths that happened this morning in Little Rock

— The first occurred at 1510 Bragg Street. Police say that around 4 a.m., a man named Ean Bordeaux called 911 in reference to someone attempting to destroy his hot dog cart. Police say the suspect left, but returned, at which point Bourdeaux confronted the man. The man fled on foot, with Bordeaux in pursuit. Police say that while Bourdeaux was engaged with the suspect, who Allen identifies as former Little Rock Police Officer Todd Payne, Payne sustained unspecified injuries that led to his death at a local hospital. An investigation is ongoing. The Forbidden Hillcrest Blog has been in touch with Bordeaux. See the update below for some details and the link.

— The second incident occurred just before 7 a.m. this morning, at 224 E. 7th Street. Police say a female suspect may have allegedly stabbed her husband, killing him, then attempted to commit suicide by cutting her wrists. She has been transported to a local hospital.

Both cases are in the very early stages. We'll have more details as they become available.

UPDATE: One of the things Bordeaux published with his March 1 report on Payne at his blog is a link to a Youtube video featuring telephone voice messages in which a man — purported to be Payne — berates and threatens a St. Louis insurance agent who had been handling the claim on a 2007 auto accident in Little Rock that Payne was involved in. At the time, Payne was still an officer with the Little Rock Police Department. In one of over a dozen profanity- and threat-laced messages, the man on the recording calls the female insurance agent a "c**t," calls her boss a "faggot" and threatens to "come over there and f**k you up, bitch." The Little Rock Police Department investigated the claims after the woman filed a complaint. According to paperwork posted at his blog by Bourdeaux, in June 2007, an investigator with the Little Rock Police Department told the Missouri State Highway Patrol that the woman had refused to cooperate with the investigation 'because she was afraid that Officer Payne would come to St. Louis and do bodily harm to her."
UPDATE II: The blog Forbidden Hillcrest has been in touch with Bordeaux, who says that around 4 this morning, a masked man tried twice to set his hot dog cart on fire as it sat in his driveway. After extinguishing the flames the first time, Bordeaux told the blog, the man returned after he went back in the house. The man began dousing his cart again in flammable liquid, Bordeaux said, at which point he came out of the house, chased the man down and tackled him. Bordeaux held the man down until police arrived. The masked man, since identified as Payne, later died. More details at Forbidden Hillcrest.